Hey, folks. Happy Sunday. It’s August 27th, which means we’re only one day away from August 28th! As part of my ongoing climb-up-an-oil-covered-wall attempt at making this newsletter consistent, I’m trying to actually set specific days to do things. You’ve all been here. You know it won’t last. But try to believe in me. Please.
Strike News
We’re now over a hundred days into the WGA strike (and over a month with SAG) and we still don’t have a decent deal. And, yeah, it’s tiring. It’s hard to picket in the deep Summer heat and even worse to not be able to do what we love most: Writing. And then complaining about the fact we’re writing. But we need to be able to write first to do that!
Unfortunately, the AMPTP hasn’t just avoided coming to the table, it’s refusing to acknowledge the table even exists. We’ve had one counteroffer from them, to which we gave our own counteroffer. Despite this, you’ll still hear in the media that the WGA has not countered. This is coming from the AMPTP themselves. We have.
Right now, instead of the AMPTP responding to our latest counteroffer, they’ve hired crisis PR firms. Which isn’t great because you usually don’t hire a crisis PR firm unless you feel like you’re in, ya’ know, a crisis. Still, they’ve now hired - I believe - three firms. Turns out they do have money.
Meanwhile, they’re claiming that they’ve given late night / comedy variety writers a great deal. As someone who’s written for a lot of late night shows, I can tell you that it’s not a good offer. It promises certain rates but then makes those rates correspond with ridiculously high budgets. Budgets, I should add, that the studios control. It also doesn’t cover other writers in our sub-group, Appendix A (long story; don’t ask). So their “safeguards” for us totally ignore game show and daytime writers. Fortunately, we’re all in this together.
So we’re still at it! But, as always, all we want is a deal. I would love to go back to work and make people laugh as the little numbers on my bank account go up rather than down. So hopefully the AMPTP can stop paying consultants and just pay us.
New Articles - Zapp Brannigan Edition
You want some new columns about games? Brother, you got some new columns about games! All the columns about games you need!
Before you get to dessert, I wrote another article about God’s favorite portable system from the ‘90s, the Neo Geo Pocket. If you like the Pokémon Card Game that just got re-released on Switch, you need to play Card Fighters Clash.
On the fun side, I wrote about my plan for Starfield. My main RPG characters often turn out to be some high charisma, high intelligence super persuader who avoids combat at all costs. This time, I’m keeping the high charisma and ditching everything else. I’m going to play as a complete idiot who runs straight into battle and gets all his friends killed in the name of his own personal glory. I’m going to be Zapp Brannigan.
What I’m Playing: Mechs & Magic
I’m about 30 hours in Baldur’s Gate 3 and I believe I’m possibly close to finally being at the end of the opening of the game. This thing is fucking huge. I’m playing a Dark Urge sorcerer who’s absolutely terrible at giving in to those dark urges. I got squeamish. I wanted to be a bad person, but it made me feel bad. But in real life? Oh, man, I’m absolutely awful.
I’m also loving Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon: Lost In New York. It’s another From Software game, which means it’s hard. And unfair. And mean. And weird. And oblique. But it’s a game where big robots go boom fight fight pow, so I’m fine. I just wish my abilities in video games matched up to my enjoyment of them.
How Are You?
I don’t think I ask that enough.
That's so funny, I quoted pieces from you liberally in my thesis that ChatGPT is Zapp Brannigan: https://factualdispatch.substack.com/p/factual-dispatch-56-chatgpt-is-zapp Saw the topic and was hype you saw it. You'd like it I think.